wrestlenewbie

It absolutely mattered. He dropped into consols quickly which caused him to have to wrestle more matches. You are arguing that the seed was wrong, but you think you are arguing that it doesn't  matter. The higher your seed, the easier your path. The lower, the harder. For someone involved in wrestling I am surprised you struggle with this concept. When you take your wrestlers to a tourney do you argue for a higher seed or a lower seed? Come on. Be honest.

At least you can take solace in the fact that it was IU basketball (and UofI) that prevented Michigan State from getting a 1 seed.

I would argue that McKenna was gassed at the end of all three matches.
Last year the difference was he had riding time. Lee gave up a bad take down with 1 second left on the clock at the end of 2 to loose the lead. He tied it at 6 in the third but couldn't overcome the riding time point. 
The dual this year Lee was down 5-1 after 1 and then out scored McKenna 6-1 the rest of the way. When Lee got the final take down with about 30 seconds to go McKenna had nothing left and barely made an attempt to get off the mat.
In the B1Gs it was almost a similar story. McKenna goes up 5-1 with Lee giving up another bad take down with 3 seconds to go in the first. The difference this time is McKenna puts on a clinic on how to defend. There are at least two shots that look like he is definitely giving up 2, but he keeps wrestling and fights off the take down (Flo calls it Matrix level D). In the third McKenna is very slow to return to neutral and Lee does get the take down on his second attempt with about 2 seconds left. I think if Lee finishes the first attempt in the third we see the same ending as last time. But he didn't. And all credit goes to McKenna for stopping him.
That said, let me paint a scenario for you. Its Friday night and Lee is facing McKenna in the semis. They both wrestled Friday morning. McKenna looks bigger than Lee. That is because he is bigger. He has to cut harder to make weight. He has to stay at weight all day. Hard to do without an effect on the energy levels.  Lee is more natural at 141 and is less affected by multiple weigh ins. Now Lee avoids giving up the silly take down with zeros almost showing on the clock. It is a close match because they are closely matched, but McKenna finds himself even more gassed than normal in the third. 
Lee/Diakomiholis under the lights Saturday night. 

I would argue that McKenna was gassed at the end of all three matches.
Last year the difference was he had riding time. Lee gave up a bad take down with 1 second left on the clock at the end of 2 to loose the lead. He tied it at 6 in the third but couldn't overcome the riding time point. 
The dual this year Lee was down 5-1 after 1 and then out scored McKenna 6-1 the rest of the way. When Lee got the final take down with about 30 seconds to go McKenna had nothing left and barely made an attempt to get off the mat.
In the B1Gs it was almost a similar story. McKenna goes up 5-1 with Lee giving up another bad take down with 3 seconds to go in the first. The difference this time is McKenna puts on a clinic on how to defend. There are at least two shots that look like he is definitely giving up 2, but he keeps wrestling and fights off the take down (Flo calls it Matrix level D). In the third McKenna is very slow to return to neutral and Lee does get the take down on his second attempt with about 2 seconds left. I think if Lee finishes the first attempt in the third we see the same ending as last time. But he didn't. And all credit goes to McKenna for stopping him.
That said, let me paint a scenario for you. Its Friday night and Lee is facing McKenna in the semis. They both wrestled Friday morning. McKenna looks bigger than Lee. That is because he is bigger. He has to cut harder to make weight. He has to stay at weight all day. Hard to do without an effect on the energy levels.  Lee is more natural at 141 and is less affected by multiple weigh ins. Now Lee avoids giving up the silly take down with zeros almost showing on the clock. It is a close match because they are closely matched, but McKenna finds himself even more gassed than normal in the third. 
Lee/Diakomiholis under the lights Saturday night. 

I have no opinion on the job the Purdue coach is doing, but from a pure math/logic standpoint I am not enamored with your analysis. Wrestling to seed just means the seeding committee accurately assessed their ability, not that they had a good performance. The contra argument would be that their seeds were too low and the coach has the ability to impact that. With 7 of 10 wrestlers in the bottom half of the bracket wrestling to seed seems a minimum standard.
Using a plus/minus analysis it looks like they actually wrestled to one spot below their overall seed.
125: +1
133: 0
141: 0
149: 0
157: 0
165: 0
174: -2
184: +1
195: -2
285: +1
Total: -1

I have no opinion on the job the Purdue coach is doing, but from a pure math/logic standpoint I am not enamored with your analysis. Wrestling to seed just means the seeding committee accurately assessed their ability, not that they had a good performance. The contra argument would be that their seeds were too low and the coach has the ability to impact that. With 7 of 10 wrestlers in the bottom half of the bracket wrestling to seed seems a minimum standard.
Using a plus/minus analysis it looks like they actually wrestled to one spot below their overall seed.
125: +1
133: 0
141: 0
149: 0
157: 0
165: 0
174: -2
184: +1
195: -2
285: +1
Total: -1

Great question. A couple of things make it so hard to answer. Recency bias will always favor Mendez. We saw it with our own eyes just a few days ago. He was no fluke. Clearly the best wrestler at 126 in the state of Indiana. He did not look like a freshman physically or in his technique. The real deal. 
On the other hand, lets discuss quality of competition. Mendez beat a defending state champion who is not ranked nationally (at least I couldn't find a rank, correct me if I am wrong) and came in with 2 losses. And that defending state champ was only ranked third in his own state (and finished third, nice job rankers). Lee lost, there is no denying that, but it was to a senior who was ranked #1 in the nation (and still #1 five years later). It is impossible to determine the magnitude difference between the levels of competition, but it must be acknowledged that it is vast.
So summing it all up....I have no freakin' idea, but I love the concept. Oh yeah, and I'll take Lee.

First three sessions are on BTN plus. Finals are on BTN. 
https://bigten.org/sports/2019/1/29/WREST_CHAMPS_19.aspx

On the other hand...
I just read that a seat on a Soyuz rocket to the international space station goes for $82,000,000. Perhaps that is what the NCAA is using for comps.

No one who reads my history of posts would be surprised to hear I am a big Lee fan, but I hate, Hate, HATE the bash Chad Red posts. Who cares how he celebrates? Let it go. He won fair and square in high school. I have never met him, but I like to think he is a really nice kid who trains hard.

Do not discourage this guy. Back Yard Champ is my favorite first grade math poster on this board. He hasn't posted in a while because he and Lavar are playing HORSE out back to see who gets Jordan.

I rank them by height

Don't get me wrong, I think everything BYC said was absolutely moronic. And I doubt he even believed most of it. He was just winding you guys up. He even liked two of my posts where I made fun of the stupid stuff he said. I'm just saying he does not need to be credentialed to be stupid. For example, if it turns out that BYC is Kyle Snyder, that would not validate anything he said. It would all still be stupid. 

You didn't ask what his credentials were. You asked what year he won, as though that is what would give him license to have an opinion. On that measure there are 14 guys per year who can post here.
I defend his right to say stupid stuff because I say stupid stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I think everything BYC said was absolutely moronic. And I doubt he even believed most of it. He was just winding you guys up. He even liked two of my posts where I made fun of the stupid stuff he said. I'm just saying he does not need to be credentialed to be stupid. For example, if it turns out that BYC is Kyle Snyder, that would not validate anything he said. It would all still be stupid. 

I like this story. He may or may not have had what sounds like very little previous experience in wrestling, but either way I dont find it any less impressive.  Sure we want the neat movie script version where the nuance and detail are scrubbed away in the name of the story, but life is messy and rarely ever linear. If his career record equals his 2018-19 record, like what was reported during the intro, then that's good enough for me. And even if the two are ever so slightly different, count me still impressed.

And Lavar Ball thinks he can take Michael Jordan.

I like this story. He may or may not have had what sounds like very little previous experience in wrestling, but either way I dont find it any less impressive.  Sure we want the neat movie script version where the nuance and detail are scrubbed away in the name of the story, but life is messy and rarely ever linear. If his career record equals his 2018-19 record, like what was reported during the intro, then that's good enough for me. And even if the two are ever so slightly different, count me still impressed.

How about mini Ditka? I know. Still mini Ditka.
And speaking of mustaches, how fantastic was the lip rug sported by the North Central coach? That man was half 'stache. I feel like the mustache grew him, not the other way around.

And Lavar Ball thinks he can take Michael Jordan.

You think you are, but you may want to spend a little more time with the books. You should start with set theory as you are clearly mixing up the sets. It probably feels like Indiana is bigger than the nation to you, but you may may be surprised to learn that it is actually a subset of the nation. I think that is covered in the first chapter.

Now that you mention it. Lets call it the Platinum Age of IHSAA. If we expand across weight classes. Mason Parris, Brayton Lee, Joe Lee, Nick Lee, Chad Red, Stevan Micic all overlapping. Wowza. You fans were all very spoiled.

you're not very good with math are you?